


Book of Days

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Peggy is Chief of West Coast SSR, Canon Compliant up to 1x08, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fandom Stocking 2017, Friendship, Romance, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Peggy is appointed as Chief of the West Coast SSR instead of Daniel.





	Book of Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



 

"The president wants to thank you himself." The Senator was walking Jack towards the Chief's office as the mix of Cooper's bodyguards and the government's press corps spread out around the New York SSR Office.

There was something entirely too predictable about this, Peggy thought, as the two men pushed her aside to pass by.

Knowing his audience, Jack scoffed, "Maybe next time, I'll vote from him." The chuckling Senator slapped his back and the two of them moved their conversation into the privacy of Dooley's old office.

Peggy lifted an eyebrow in the face of Daniel's obvious shock. That shock soon changed to ire. 

"How can you just sit there and take that?" Daniel turned to go after the pair.

"Daniel," she called after him. 

"I'm gonna tell that Senator what really happened."

And then, before Peggy could stop him, to tell him it was alright, that she knew her own value, Daniel strode inside the office after the two men, banging the wooden door open in his passion.

Peggy clenched her black purse in her hands, her unflappable mood tilting slightly on its axis. She couldn't go after Daniel now, not without embarrassing him and the entire outfit. She'd look like a fool trying to stop him, like they all had something to hide. From inside the office, Daniel's raised voice echoed into the main hall, but she couldn't distinguish individual words. Trying for detachment, Peggy walked to her desk, and fiddled with her pens, attempting to calm the beating of her heart.

It took two minutes for the Senator to come out. He scanned the office; squinted in Peggy's direction when his eyes landed on her. "Miss Carter?" he called.

"Agent," Peggy corrected, though maybe not as firmly as she'd have preferred. The eyes and ears of the entire office were on her. The agents who had clapped her entrance earlier, whose good will she had finally earned after a year of thankless menial tasks, were watching how she comported herself in the spotlight.

Cooper quirked a practiced smile. "Of course. I hear you have been instrumental in saving the life of Howard Stark."

"I had a hand in it," Peggy answered cautiously.

"Carter single-handedly took down a Russian Spy who had kidnapped Stark," Daniel suggested heatedly from the Senator's side. "And it was Agent Carter's leg-work that let us deal quickly with the situation in Times Square."

Cooper's eyes slipped down to the level of Peggy's calves. She bet the Senator wasn't thinking of her leg-work in quite the same way Daniel meant. But the Senator's cool grey eyes were bright and amused when they rose to her face, regarding her carefully. "Why don't you step into the office with us, Agent Carter? I think there are a few things we have to discuss."

He motioned with a hand for her to follow him. Peggy deliberately didn't look at the pronounced frown on Jack's face as she cleared her dry throat and went inside Chief's office. 

All eyes followed her in.

 

* * *

 

"I don't need a congressional honor," Peggy was explaining later, when the rest of the SSR agents had dispersed to do their jobs, and the fuss surrounding the Senator's visit had died down. 

Next to Peggy, Daniel leaned against the edge of her desk, his broad shoulder inches from her own. 

"And I wouldn't be able to convince Howard to work with the government no matter how many times I save his life. He doesn't trust them with his inventions."

"Cooper's just looking for a way in with Stark," Daniel agreed. "But that doesn't mean you can't use that to your advantage. He thinks he needs you to get to Stark. And you may not need a congressional honor, Peggy, but you damn well _deserve_ one."

"Daniel," she said gently.

"Peggy, you saved thousands of people, Cooper wasn't wrong about that." Peggy didn't manage to contain her smile. "I couldn't let Thompson take all the credit."

"They are making him Chief," Peggy said, and tried it out on her tongue, "Chief Thompson." It wasn't an awful thought. He wasn't Dooley, didn't have the man's experience or seniority, but Jack was not an evil man. He was a little young to make Chief, but who knew what the people in charge were thinking: there were motivations within motivations, schemes within schemes. Maybe they wanted a 'yes' man. Maybe Jack had the right connections. It didn't really matter, the deal was as good as sealed when Cooper mentioned it in front of the press. It would be in the papers tomorrow. Her main priority right now was catching Dottie Underwood in any case. With the right nudge Jack could be made to see reason, and Peggy had worked with worse. 

She and Daniel sat in silence for another moment.

Then Daniel coughed, and offered to go out for drinks. Peggy was charmed. If she hadn't had plans to meet Angie after work, she would have gone gladly. As it was though...

"Another time," she offered.

Daniel nodded, and that was that.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, Daniel grabbed her by the elbow on the way inside the SSR office and lead her to the nearby unoccupied office room.

"What is it, Daniel?" A cold pit started to settle in her stomach when he shut the door behind them. "Did something happen?"

"Word came down they picked the Chief for the West Coast office of the SSR," Daniel said without a preamble.

"Alright..."

"Maybe you'd better sit down," Daniel kept going, looking entirely to excited by whatever insider info he had to share. Peggy definitely wasn't going to sit down. "Jack told me this morning. They are thinking of giving it to you."

"What?"

Peggy sat down.

 

* * *

 

The whole business with saving Howard's life, with the interview he gave to the press afterward when asked about "Miss Carter's" role in the story, had somehow catapulted Peggy's name up the shortlist of candidates for taking over at the West Coast. Apparently, Colonel Phillips put in a good word. 

Later, when asked if he trusted Peggy to look after the country's best interests in such a high-ranking post, Howard Stark was quoted in the papers as saying, "She'll always have my backing." Apparently, this was interpreted in certain circles as _financial_ backing of the Stark Industries and Weapons Manufacturing Division, and suddenly Peggy's name was at the top of the candidacy list.

Jack had called her into his office and stared at her for a good thirty seconds in frowning silence until Peggy felt forced to arch a brow his way.

"Is there anything I can do for you? Chief."

"I don't know what's the game playing out here, Carter," Jack said to end the silent standoff, "but I should warn you, as a friend. If you accept the West Coast job, you're diving into the deep end of the pool."

"I'll take that under advisement." If he was trying to talk her out of it, that only made the job all the more attractive to her. Previously, Peggy wouldn't have considered taking a job _just_ to show up a man, but Jack's attitude since inheriting Dooley's position had been swinging between congenial "one of the boys" and "over-controlling boss from hell". Peggy was rapidly losing her patience. Being out from under his thumb would feel good. 

Still, was she ready to be in charge? She didn't want a desk job. Add to it all, they still had no leads on Underwood and the furor surrounding the West Coast assignment was severely interfering with Peggy's ability to work that case.

"Set aside office politics," Jack continued. "Do you really think you're ready to lead a bureau?"

Peggy drew herself up. "As ready as you are." She pressed out, "Chief." 

Something in Jack's expression grew softer, amused. "Alright, Carter," he said eventually, sounding almost fond. "Your funeral."

 

* * *

 

The truth was, Peggy wasn't sure she _wanted_ the job.

People congratulated her, and warned her, and tried to get on her good side now in a way she hadn't experience before. Angie thought the whole thing hilarious, and that Peggy could use the move as a springboard to turn into a Hollywood actress. Nobody was actually bothering to ask her what she thought.

So when Rose pulled her aside, Peggy was rather distracted, and it took her a moment to grasp what Rose was asking her.

"Go with me?" she repeated, frankly baffled. California seemed so far away. 

One of the prominent thoughts on her mind was that she'd be even further from England, from being able to readily visit her parents if anything happened to them. Further from where Steve had found his final resting place.

"The moment I heard you might be heading up the new L.A. bureau, I knew I had to leap at the opportunity," Rose was saying. "You are going to need people to set up the office there. I'm willing to do anything."

"Rose..."

"Anything," Rose repeated doggedly. "I'll man the phones, I'll do anything and everything you require, Peggy."

"You're really set on the idea," Peggy said in wonder.

"I am so sick of the New York shadows."

"I don't know, I kind of like it here," Peggy looked to the side, out of the shaded office window. It wasn't even that it reminded her of home; the climate was different enough. But New York was a familiar playground. Her life was here.

Daniel was here.

The two of them had made a few furtive moves to go on a date, plans which work had interfered with. She knew Daniel was interested; she'd made herself available in the evenings in case he raised the possibility again. She knew, with time, they'd test the waters... but not if she was in _California_.

"Are you truly considering not taking the job?" Rose was staring at her with a look that Peggy had never seen on her face. It wasn't surprise or even disappointment, exactly. It went deeper than that.

"You think I should?"

Rose was silent for a moment.

"Peg, like it or not, this is bigger than you," she said firmly. "What you've accomplished here is a part of history. They can replace you with another agent, another man, and things will go on as they always have. But if you step up, I know what you can do, for all of us."

Then Rose smiled sunnily, patted her on the arm, and left Peggy stunned on her own in an empty room.

She'd never considered before that the promotion she was so selfishly seeing only in light of her own career was something that might mean a lot to other people. To women like Rose, who fought so hard to stay relevant in their male-dominated workplace. To women like Colleen, whom Peggy was finally starting to be able to think about without tearing up.

Her attraction to Daniel, their potential relationship, those couldn't be the determining factor in whether she stayed in New York or took the job.

Rose had it right. This was bigger than her.

Daniel would understand.

 

* * *

 

A month later, sitting in her freshly painted office in Los Angeles, on the secret, third floor of the Auerbach Theatrical Agency, Peggy realized she'd been tricked into taking the job.

There was just so much to _do_.

She didn't have enough agents to do it all.

Peggy could only be in so many places at once, and the group of people who'd followed her from New York to the West Coast was too small to run a full bureau. She put Rose towards recruitment right away, but that staffing effort wouldn't bear fruit for months, if not years. Right now her office was very, very green, and to top it off every official piece of paper that passed across Peggy's desk made her want to scream.

"You will get through this," Jarvis told her one warm evening on the veranda of Stark's mansion where Peggy was temporarily residing, as Howard's special guest. She was supposed to be looking for a place of her own, but her current workload simply didn't leave her any time for apartment hunting. Besides, she found herself enjoying the company of Ana Jarvis, who was a delightful woman and entirely unlike anything Peggy had pictured for Jarvis's wife. 

Jarvis said, "If I can get used to palm trees, anything can be borne."

 

* * *

 

Peggy hadn't spoken with Daniel for four months when she met Kevin.

He was charming, and worked at the city's General Hospital ― that was how they'd met, actually ― and he understood that she was too busy for conventional dates. He didn't look bothered to be dating a Special Agent, nor was he over-protective when it came to the risks of the job.

Peggy couldn't make herself feel anything for him. 

The relationship didn't last. She told herself she was too busy to date.

Four months.

It felt longer.

 

* * *

 

Six months passed on the job before Peggy accepted the inevitable and phoned Thompson.

They'd talked before, certainly, at regular intervals to confer on the job matters ― Jack liked to ask her how it felt to be "the big man in charge" ― but she'd never asked him for anything like the favour she was asking of him now.

She hadn't been able to let the last investigation go by her desk without looking into it personally. What had seemed intriguingly mysterious at the time ― an ice cube the size of a lake with a dead woman trapped inside ― began to look even more complicated as Peggy conducted her own investigation on the side. It wasn't enough that the police detective on the case had been covering up the woman's murder, now it seemed there was a US Senator involved, and most likely his wife as well. One Whitney Frost, whom Peggy had only had a cursory introduction to at the race track. 

Chadwick had won a seat in the Senate easily enough, after his main opponent stepped down a few days before the election day. When the woman's body in the lake ended up linked to Isodyne energies, the Senator had refused all attempts on Peggy's part to discuss the way Jane Scott had ended up encased in ice in the middle of July, or their relationship ― rumoured to be very close indeed. Several phone-calls were placed by the higher ups to Peggy's office to dissuade her from interfering with a US Senator's busy schedule, which only made her more determined to get to the bottom of this case. 

Peggy simply did not have the time to investigate further on her own. Even taking down Detective Henry for his part in Scott's murder had taken more hours than Peggy had to spare. She'd been careless, stretched thin as she was, and had nearly gotten a civilian scientist killed.

It was time to swallow her pride and ask for help.

Of course, Jack Thompson wasn't one to be the bigger man about a thing like that. Theirs was not a cordial relationship. Last time they had talked, Peggy had chewed into him for letting Dottie slip away when they'd almost had her at a bank heist, and Jack had not taken it well at all. Now he was making her pay for her earlier rebuke.

"It's a real burden being Chief," Jack said over the phone line, the satisfaction thrumming through his voice as he milked the moment for all it was worth.

"You know I'm understaffed," Peggy said.

"So, what? You want to leave New York thin the moment you catch a real case, because you don't have enough men under you?"

Peggy glared at the receiver in her hand. Insufferable man. 

But if Peggy had learned one thing being in charge of an office full of very... differing personalities, it was that sometimes it was better not to let pricks like this touch her.

"I think you can spare one agent," she said calmly.

Jack was silent for a long moment. "I know just the man for you."

 

* * *

 

The one bright spot in her job was the people Peggy worked with. For all her apprehension about taking the job and having to order people around, the men and women she ended up working with in the L.A. bureau had pulled tight around her as a unit. As unusual as it was to have a woman be in charge, nobody seemed too upset, as long as that woman was Peggy. The agents who'd come with her originally from New York had set the office culture based on the work she'd done with them, and Peggy was proud of being able to thus far live up to everyone's expectations. Well, she would never please the War Department ― they were constantly on her case about the budget and funding going to waste ― but she strongly suspected that nobody could please those craggy old men. 

The people on the ground, the men and women she interacted with daily at the office ― to her satisfaction Peggy found herself actually getting along with them rather splendidly. They admired her dare-do, she tried to give them the same respect back she'd wanted for her self when working under Dooley. It wasn't all roses, and conflicts over raises and job assignments plagued her as in any outfit, driving her to many sleepless nights, but every time she was getting to the point of considering throwing in the towel, something, some interaction with one of her people, would remind her why she was doing this. There were moments when she even thought she might be good at this leadership thing, after all.

Hence, she was surrounded by a laughing group of other agents when Daniel came in. She was holding a cup of hot tea Dr. Samberly had brought her ― he thought it would get him a field promotion; it wouldn't ― when she saw the familiar face and nearly burned her hand setting the cup down on the table.

"Daniel!" she called out, feeling her cheeks flush at how happy that had come out, altogether too revealing with their coworkers looking on. She had to stay calm, collected.

Daniel came closer, and his cheeks were flushed, as well. He was smiling faintly, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in that way she'd forgotten about entirely, but which now for some reason took her breath away.

The crowd dispersed, too professional for gossip, which was another point in their favour.

For a moment the two of them stood in the middle of the hall, silently regarding one another. He was paler than she remembered, even though it was summertime. Daniel looked like he hadn't had luck with a good night of sleep lately, but then Peggy had started to get her own dark circles under the eyes ― ruthlessly covered up with makeup ― so she could hardly call him on it. 

"Thompson said you requested backup." 

She hadn't thought his first words in nearly half a year would be those. Also, she was going to kill Jack. There was zero chance he hadn't done this on purpose, to fluster her.

"Welcome to Los Angeles," Peggy said, trying for warmth. After all, Daniel had come here, hadn't he? Perhaps not everything was lost. Suddenly she knew with surety how much she didn't want everything to be over between them, not before they truly even tried. 

Peggy had never been one to waste time or mince words.

"I know I chose this job, and I've been busy setting up this bureau," she said, watching Daniel swallow nervously, "but I did call, on several occasions. Why didn't you return my messages?"

He looked down and away. "Because sometimes a three-hour difference feels like a lifetime."

Peggy let the words sink in. She'd picked the job, knowingly, but it still hurt to realize _that_ was the sole reason for the emotional distance. That maybe, if she had stayed in New York, their tentative beginnings might have grown into something more.

Nobody interrupted them as they regarded one another, until Peggy had to glance away herself, pained because Daniel looked pained. She attempted to regain the emotional balance she'd been missing since the moment he walked through the door. Turned to something she could control.

"Let me show you my office."

He followed her.

"So, you are settling in well," Daniel said when he strode inside, looking about the airy, sunny room. Peggy hadn't had much time to decorate, but it was her space, and it pleased her that she'd gotten this far. An office of her own. Daniel seemed impressed, and not the least bit resentful. She'd feared that, at one point, when first taking the job. That he might have wanted it for himself ― he had as much right to it as she did, after all. But Daniel had been nothing but supportive back in New York, and now he was looking at her with a clear admiration in his face. "This place is working like a well-oiled machine."

"Only if you don't look too closely," Peggy sighed, sitting behind her light mahogany desk. She was well aware of where the cogs had gotten stuck. But to hear Daniel's words was flattering in any case. "How are things in New York?"

Daniel rubbed his forehead with a thumb.

Peggy arched a brow. "That bad?" A part of her was disappointed. She'd hoped Jack would get past his ego eventually, but if the look on Daniel's face was any sign, things were not improving. "Is Jack being his usual pleasant self?"

Daniel looked startled. "Oh? No. Jack's actually... It's been fine."

Well now. Now Peggy turned her chair to regard him fully, curious about this turn of events.

"We've mended fences, you could say?" Daniel offered tentatively. "After the Underwood thing... Jack really took it hard. I think he is getting flack from above for letting her slip away that time." He shrugged glancing down. "She helped kill Dooley."

Peggy understood that guilt. It was part of what drove her own frustration with the inability to go after Dottie, and what made her short with Jack when she heard that Russian minx was still running circles around them.

"It hasn't been roses as far as higher ups are concerned here either," she allowed. "Sometimes, I feel they are doing everything in their power to make things as difficult as possible for us. I expected some push-back, but not this much."

Daniel nodded. "According to Jack, the entire Department of War is being restructured now it's peacetime, which means that the SSR is going the way of the dinosaur."

"So you two have bonded, have you?" Peggy said, allowing herself a little smile. "Don't want to kill him anymore?"

"Only a little bit," Daniel said with a tiny smile of his own. "We've had to pull quite a few all-nighters together... I guess there are things I didn't know before that can change your opinion of the guy."

Peggy regarded him curiously, wonderingly. Did Daniel know Jack's secret? Or did something else happen?

It wasn't her place to ask.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said honestly, and added with a chagrined smile, "Although, that means it'll be harder to steal you away for the West Coast office."

Daniel's eyes flashed up, locked with hers. "Would that be something you'd want?" he asked, too seriously.

Peggy stilled. She felt his eyes fixed on her face as if the next words she spoke were the difference between life and death for him. "Could there be any doubt, Daniel?"

He pressed his lips together for a moment. "You left."

Peggy's heart beat double time. This was it. This was the moment. Her nails nearly pierced the skin of her palm where she clenched her fist. "You could have come with me."

Eyes dark and heated, Daniel rushed forward a step, seemed to stop himself. Hesitated. "Peggy―"

"Daniel―" she jumped up off her high leather seat, coming around the desk to meet him half-way.

Seeing her move, he reached for her and she came willingly. Daniel grabbed her hand, and she squeezed his warm fingers back, to let him know this was alright, his touch was what she wanted, and he pulled her in, close.

When their lips crushed together, at first too hard, then softening, gentling the passionate kiss, Peggy thought she finally found her Hollywood ending.

 

* * *

 

Rose interrupted them some time later with a quick knock on the door that made them spring apart, and straighten their clothing guiltily.

"Chief," Rose poked her head through the door. "There's been an explosion at Isodyne Energies. No reported casualties, but considering the connection to Jane Scott, I was thinking to head out to the scene to check it out. I could use some backup." Rose's eyes strayed meaningfully to Daniel.

Peggy and Daniel glanced at each other.

Peggy smiled. It was a beginning.

 

**Fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> And they all lived happily ever after. And saved the world a lot.
> 
> This story takes some artistic liberties with the pace of women's right movement in USA, but this is MCU not Our U and also Peggy totally deserved that job, dammit. I wish knowing her own value did not seemingly preclude others knowing it too, so I tried to fix that. Some of the dialogue is taken directly from the show. The title is from Enya's song ["Book of Days"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cj9yez4n00), a fitting theme for Peggy's journey. The speech Rose gives to Peggy is inspired by the words Martin Luther King had for Nichelle Nichols about her role in "Star Trek: The Original Series". 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story!


End file.
